Scars
by PrinRue
Summary: When a muttonheaded statement leaves Hiccup feeling insecure, it's up to Astrid to show him what it really means. Post movie one; Hiccup/Astrid bonding; hurt/comfort; reassurance


**And the hurt/comfort continues... what else did you expect XD**

**This is loosely inspired by a chapter from another fic, "Ouch!", by the amazing BeyondTheClouds777. While their story was all about the pain, mine focuses on bonding and feels :) **

**Am I too mean to Hiccup? He's just so easy to pick on, and get a good h/c story out of XD. Poor guy... he and Dipper tend to be my scapegoats... **

**Anyway, enjoy my latest oneshot!**

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It was late and dark in Berk, but the firefight was bright and lively as the six friends and their dragons sat around it, holding their roasting yak legs over the flames. All throughout town, the young Vikings' laughter could be heard, as they discussed their new dragon tricks and training tactics. All was going smoothly, until one unfortunate turn in the conversation, brought on by a misplaced food spear.

"Yow!" Fishlegs yelped, dropping his meal and holding his hand in pain.

"Fishlegs! Are you alright?" Hiccup asked.

"Ah, I'm fine," he said, his voice still clearly in pain. "Just burned myself a bit…"

"Really? Let me see!" Tuffnut yelled, grabbing the other boy's hand. "That's going to make a nice scar. Burning always does for me!" The blond held out his hands, showing several small white scars crossing them. Fishlegs recoiled in fear, pulling his own hand back.

"Thanks, but no thanks…"

"Why not? It's part of a Viking's pride to show off their trophies from battle!"

"Yeah, bro, but I'm not sure being a bad cook counts as 'battle', exactly," Ruffnut said, laughing.

"What? You think I don't have other scars? How about this!" The male twin got up in his sister's face, pointing at another small line on his nose. "That's from Dragon Training, when that Terrible Terror attacked me!"

"Big deal!" Snotlout chimed in. "How about you take a look at this!" He reached out an arm, flexing it in the firelight so a much more defined scar was illuminated. "That one was from when I fought Meatlug in the Ring!"

"I remember you did that to yourself _trying _to fight Meatlug…" Fishlegs corrected, garnering a sad growl from his dragon. "Oh, but of course we would never do anything to hurt you now, girl. You know I love you," he quickly added, nuzzling the Gronckle.

"Shut up, Fishface…" Snotlout grumbled. "But I know I still have the best scar."

Astrid glanced over each of her friends, her eyes coming to rest on Hiccup, who'd been silent the entire conversation. He was looking down, turning his yak over and over in his hands. Concerned, she tried diffusing the talk. "Hey, guys, maybe we could talk about something else-"

"Oh come on, Astrid. You know you haven't come out unscathed either. You've probably got loads of scars from being the perfect shield maiden and all," Snotlout interrupted.

Astrid quieted, unable to argue, as her hand absentmindedly touched where she knew she had one on her knee.

"See? What'd I say?"

"What about Hiccup?" Tuff asked.

"Oh please, Hiccup's never been anywhere near close enough to a weapon to get hurt by it," Ruff replied, jabbing her brother with her elbow.

"Guys, I don't-" Hiccup began, only to be cut off by Snotlout.

"That may be true," Snotlout started, "but he also lost his _leg _for Thor's sake! Clearly, that gives _him _the best scar!"

"Is that true? Show it to us, Hiccup!" Tuff yelled. "Come on!"

"Yeah, show us!" Ruff chimed in.

"I- uh…" Hiccup started, unsure of what to say or do. Then, without warning, he took off running, before Toothless caught up to him and the two leapt into the sky.

"What did I say?" Tuff asked.

"What did you _say?" _Astrid growled, turning toward the twins and Snotlout with fury in her eyes. "It hasn't even been a year since he lost his leg! Clearly he was uncomfortable with you guys all bragging about your 'battle scars', but none of you even noticed him! What were you muttonheads _thinking?" _The girl got to her feet, patting her dragon. "Come on, Stormfly. Let's go make sure he's okay." Then, without another word, she hopped onto the Nadder's back and took off in the direction of her friend.

It wasn't hard to find them. Astrid could hear his frustrated cry and a crash from the bottom of the hill. She and Stormfly swiftly landed at the Haddock House, and Astrid leapt off, banging on the door. "Hiccup! It's Astrid!" She waited a moment, but no sound came toward the door. "Please, let me in." Still nothing, but she could hear four heavy feet- Toothless- pacing back and forth inside. "I'm going to come in whether you let me or not, you know!" After still getting no response, she finally opened it herself. She was immediately met by the worried Night Fury, who grumbled pleadingly at her, glancing up toward his human's loft with huge eyes.

Astrid patted his head reassuringly, then started toward the log staircase leading to Hiccup's room. There was an object lying at the base of the stairs, which she quickly recognized to be her friend's prosthetic. Apparently that was the source of the bang and yell she'd heard earlier.

Which of course only made her more worried.

"Hiccup? Are you okay?" Astrid asked as she made her way to the top, Toothless close behind her.

"Just leave me alone, Astrid." Hiccup's voice replied. The girl finally made it to his loft, her heart sinking at the sight. Her friend was lying on his bed, his back turned to her, and arms wrapped around himself. "I'm better off that way."

"Well, sorry to say, but I'm not going anywhere." Astrid stepped closer to the bed, standing beside it for a second before deciding to sit down. She searched her mind for something reassuring to say, but she'd never been the best at finding comforting words. So, she just said, "Those guys are muttonheads."

"Thank you, but that's been established," Hiccup replied dryly. After a moment, he spoke again. "Why are we like this, Astrid?"

"Like what?"

"Proud." Hiccup finally sat up, Astrid readjusting herself so he could sit beside her. "I mean, why exactly should _this_ be a trophy of some sort?" He gestured to the abrupt end of his left leg.

"I don't know," Astrid replied. She mentally kicked herself; it wasn't until it happened to Hiccup that she herself thought differently. Before then, she'd always been proud of her battle scars; _it's only fun if you get a scar out of it, _right? Now, she wasn't so sure. Not when she'd seen first hand what it can do to a person.

"I mean, I won't lie, I used to think the same thing," he continued. "Until I met Toothless, at least." Hiccup looked into his dragon's eyes, studying them, then flitted where his replacement fin was. Toothless just gave him a sad grumble. "Seeing what I did to him, it made me look differently at the way we view these 'battle scars'. I'm certainly not proud of shooting him down. Am I glad that it ultimately brought us together? Sure." Hiccup picked up his dragon's tail. "But it shouldn't have had to come at the cost of _this." _He ran his fingers over the seam where his invention connected to Toothless. "And then Snotlout, and the twins… they think me losing my leg is like some kind of accomplishment or something. But it's not. It was an accident. Just an unfortunate accident that's caused way more trouble than it's supposedly worth..."

Astrid looked down. She'd never heard Hiccup like this before, and she didn't know what to do. She knew his injury still bothered him, though he'd never say so, but she didn't realize how bad it was. Toothless crooned, and she looked up slightly to meet his gaze. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, even more pleading than before. His thoughts were clear; he wanted to help so badly, but he was still just a dragon. He needed a _human_ to speak to his best friend.

And Astrid had to be that human.

"Well, Hiccup… they're kind of right."

"Gee, thanks Astrid, that's exactly what I needed to hear right now…"

"No, they said it… _horribly…_ but even if we shouldn't look to our scars as a sign of our worth, you kind of _are _the best out of all of us because of it."

"Me? The best? Because I'm apparently so bad at fighting dragons that I can't even come back from it with all four limbs intact?"

"No. Because you did something not even the strongest Vikings could do. Something so brave and so selfless, that it changed an entire island's way of life. Something you had no idea you'd survive or not doing, but you did anyway, because it was the right thing to do." Astrid reached out a hand, hesitating a moment before placing it on Hiccup's shoulder. "You're a hero, Hiccup. And you'd be a hero even if you didn't have any battle scars to show from it. But you know what?" She moved her hand to poke his left leg. "_This _means that they'll never be able to forget what you did for them. It's just as much of a reminder for all of Berk as it is for you. So even if it's wrong, I guess you do have a scar to be proud of."

Hiccup blinked, letting out a sigh before looking up to meet Astrid's eyes. Then, without warning, he threw his arms around her. Astrid, usually one to fight anything that grabbed her, sat frozen for a second, before slowly putting her own arms around him. "Thank you, Astrid. I'm sorry, for getting so caught up in all of this…"

"Don't be sorry, Hiccup. You have every reason to be upset; those three shouldn't have put so much pressure on you. In fact, next time I see them, I'm going to put them through Stormfly's horns." Hiccup laughed a little at that. "I just hope you can start to feel a little better about yourself now… and your battle scars."

"I think I just might." Hiccup pulled away, looking over to Toothless. The Night Fury gave his human a smile, and Hiccup set a hand on his dragon's head. "We both will," he said, smiling back. Toothless gave the boy's face a lick of affirmation.

Suddenly, the three were startled by the sound of the door flying open downstairs, and three voices yelling simultaneously.

"Hiccup! We're so sorry about what we said! We didn't mean it!" Snotlout, Tuffnut, and Ruffnut began yelling as they bolted up the stairs, Fishlegs following behind them.

"Woah, woah, guys, it's okay!" Hiccup said, holding up his hands at the three Vikings rushing toward him.

"We were such idiots and- wait did you say it's okay?" The teens abruptly stopped.

"Yes, I did." He shifted his position on the bed. "Don't think that means what you said was fine! It wasn't. But… I'm alright. Now, at least." Hiccup gave a grateful glance to Astrid. "I'm just… still getting used to it all. To having… friends. Support. Dragons. And yes, to having only one and a half legs… But it'll be fine. Since for the first time in my life… I also have people I can count on." He looked up at the group standing in his room. "Well, most of the time at least. " This got him a glare from Snotlout and the twins, but this time, there was a look of fondness in it as well.

"We're still sorry, Hiccup. We didn't mean to make you feel bad," Ruff said.

"Is there anything we can do to make it up to you? A late night dragon race, maybe? You always win those!" Tuff added.

"You know? That doesn't sound too bad." Hiccup started to get up, only to look down and remember. "Um, maybe just one favor, though, before we go?" The other teens turned back to him. "Could one of you, uh, get my leg for me? I kind of, well, threw it down the stairs earlier." Toothless allowed himself to laugh, now that his human was feeling better. "Be quiet, you," Hiccup hissed at the dragon.

His friends looked at him, seemingly only now noticing the missing prosthetic, before Snotlout threw up his hands.

"Fine! But this is just payback for earlier. Don't expect us to bail you out next time!" He said, descending the steps.

"Trust me, this is way better payback than what Astrid had planned…" Hiccup called after him, garnering an amused laugh from Astrid.

"Who said that still won't happen?" She replied with a mysterious tone in her voice. Snotlout returned, and once Hiccup had re-secured the peg, the six teens left his house and made their way to the other dragons.

"Mount up!" Fishlegs called out.

Hiccup swung himself onto Toothless' saddle, patting the Fury's head. "Ready, Bud?" Said dragon gave his friend a determined glance, and Hiccup clicked his leg into its stirrup, opening the tail.

Astrid was right. Battle scars aren't just a trophy, even if some people saw it that way. For Hiccup and Toothless, they were a reminder of each other, of the sacrifices they'd made, and of the heroes they'd become.

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**yeah, I had no idea how to end that... anyway, I hope you all enjoyed! And I hope no one was TOO OOC... other than that potential mistake, I'm pretty happy with this one! I freaking love character study, and parallelism, and hurt/comfort XD**

**Till next time!**


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